YouTuber The Action Lab often brings us quirky and entertaining experiments that provide new and unique ways of approaching science. You may remember this episode when he made a laser microscope using just a drop of water or this time when he made a black mirror.
Now, he is back with a clip where he makes a skin-like invention that moves on its own without being alive. Sounds creepy? That's because it is, but it doesn't stop it from being fun.
The see-through skin can be cut into smaller pieces that do not die even when smashed. They just become smaller moving pieces that look like worms on steroids.
This is achieved through a process called swelling-induced napping motion. The pieces of skin are made through polydimethylsiloxane and a little bit of hexane. You just mix these two ingredients together, and you get a skin-like solution that dries up into a thin sheet of moving particles.
What causes the substance to move without any prompting? Is the new substance actually alive? What other movements can it undertake? What can it be used for? This video answers all these questions and shows you how you can make these fun worms yourself.